15 July 20th–July 26th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | cONTeNTs | feeDBacK | OPiNiON | NeWs | feaTuRe | NighT+Day | culTuRe | film | cafe | music | The Professor Michael Crowe launched Southwest Mushrooms in 2017. After more than a decade of personal interest and growing mushrooms as a hobby, he decided to follow his dream to start a company that he couldn’t find elsewhere in the Valley. He’s since become somewhat of a fungi godfather, teaching people in Arizona and beyond how to cultivate mushrooms through his YouTube channel, which has nearly 9 million views and 168,000 subscribers. During a pandemic pivot, he started selling mushrooms and grow kits online. “I figure it’s better to help people,” Crowe says, explaining that part of his moti- vation is to empower people to grow their own food with very little space required. His online sales have become a primary driver for his business and created an online community. Crowe also provides spawn – sterile grain that’s been inoculated with mycelium, a rootlike structure that can sprout mushrooms – to farmers who are looking to start, maintain or expand their farms. “Sharing the knowledge has been great,” Crowe says. A small warehouse space in Phoenix serves as Crowe’s lab and farm. It is filled with grow tents that can produce around 500 pounds of mushrooms each week to sell to local restaurants, such as Giving Tree Cafe and Match Market & Bar, as well as individual customers who find Southwest Mushrooms at markets, including the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market. “Each mushroom has its own fan base,” Crowe says. When he’s not farming, Crowe is exploring other uses of mushrooms that could improve the environment. For that study, “a lifetime isn’t enough,” Crowe says. The Economist Brian Hedger admits he initially was a mushroom skeptic, despite the fact that his family forages for the fungi in Oregon. But, he’s always been fascinated by economics and how markets work. That fascination was why he was studying to get a business degree, but a job at Chandler-Gilbert Community College’s garden changed everything. The professor who ran the garden taught him about growing mushrooms, and they worked together to find a process that would allow oyster mushrooms to fruit more quickly. “My dad thought I was crazy,” Hedger recalls. “I thought this would pay for college.” Instead, he dropped out of school and quit his job to run Hypha Foods, which he launched in 2020. He sells mushrooms that he grows as well as ones that he imports, along with other coveted produce such as truffles, which also are mush- rooms. His primary customers are chefs, and his mushrooms are used at Tarbell’s, Anhelo, Wrigley Mansion and Tia Carmen. Hedger is expanding beyond fungi, adding microgreens to a new space he’s acquired in north Phoenix, which also will allow him to begin importing and processing meats. And he’s in the process of buying land in Prescott where he can focus on growing gourmet crops on a larger scale. Hypha has already branched out into Las Vegas, and Hedger hopes to expand to serve the rest of the southwest and position the U.S. as a competitor among produce categories dominated by Europe and Asia. “With my love for economic theory and my passion for nature, I have a desire to enable everyone in the world to get ahold of these rare items,” Hedger says. Arizona’s climate isn’t one that first comes to mind for growing mushrooms, so those who do farm them focus on varieties that can be cultivated indoors mimicking conditions for decomposer fungi that fruit on or near trees, such as oyster, shiitake, turkey tail, pioppino and lion’s mane. And while these four farmers may have come to the world of mushrooms differently – from looking for a change to looking to change the world – each is continuing to build a fungi farming movement of their own right here in the Valley. Michael Crowe started Southwest Mushrooms after more than a decade as a hobbyist. Brian Hedger started Hypha Foods with blue oyster mushrooms. He is expanding the business to include microgreens and imported produce and meats. Southwest Mushrooms Sara Crocker Mushroom Madness from p 13
